This video image taken from a CCTV camera at a petrol station in Ressons, North of Paris, on November 11, 2015 shows Salah Abdeslam (R), a suspect in the Paris attack of November 13, and Mohamed Abrini (C) buying goods
| AFP via Getty Images

US designates alleged Paris attacker a terrorist two weeks after his arrest

The primary living suspect in November’s attacks in Paris has been designated a terrorist by the United States more than two weeks after he was arrested in Belgium.

The action, announced Tuesday by the State Department, means that Americans are forbidden from engaging in financial and other material transactions with Salah Abdeslam, and that any assets he may have in the U.S. are frozen.

“Terrorism designations is one of the ways the United States can expose and isolate organizations and individuals engaged in terrorism, impose serious sanctions on them, and enable coordinated action across the U.S. government and with our international partners,” the State Department said in a news release.

Abdeslam is Belgian-born French citizen who is accused of ties to the Islamic State terrorist group. He was caught on March 18 after a months-long manhunt following the November 13 attacks in the French capital, which killed 130 people, including an American citizen.

The attack in Paris, and a more recent one in Brussels, Belgium, have roiled European nations who worry that their Muslim populations are failing to integrate, leaving them vulnerable to the siren calls of violent extremists.

The Paris attack fueled legislative efforts in the United States to make it harder for Syrian refugees to move to the United States, and spurred presidential candidates such as Republican front-runner Donald Trump to call for a temporary ban on all Muslims seeking to travel to the U.S.

The 26-year-old Abdeslam has reportedly told authorities that he’d planned on carrying out a suicide attack at a soccer stadium in Paris but backed out. Witnesses have told authorities that Abdeslam drove a car full of gunmen who killed people at restaurants in the French city. His DNA also has been found on evidence tied to the case.

Belgian authorities are expected to extradite Abdeslam to France for trial.